Chapter 41
Hello, gorgeous friends, I am Mary-Elizabeth Baxter, also known as the Genius of Love!
I know term has officially ended, but podcasts wait for no man.
Or woman. Or person who has transcended the gender binary.
And today I’m coming to you in this special bonus episode to send you on your way over the summer holidays until we meet again in September.
This academic year has been really strange and hard for me.
I thought it was going to be all fun and games, just flirting and dancing and writing essays, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case.
So I thought maybe I could write a letter to myself about how I felt this year, and then I could answer the letter.
So instead of answering a question from one of you, I’m answering a question from .
. . well, from me. Maybe it’s a silly idea, I don’t know, but let’s just roll with it and see what happens.
Worst comes to the worst, I just delete this before it ever goes live and no one except Tyler – that’s the person who sort of .
. . makes the podcast – has to hear any more of my nonsense until the autumn term. OK, here goes.
Dear Genius of Love,
My confidence got really knocked this year for a few reasons, but mostly due to feeling like sex and romance and dating was just going to end up with me getting hurt.
How do I ensure that making bad decisions, or having bad things happen to me, doesn’t stop me from approaching my romantic life with joy and excitement? How do I preserve my sparkle?
With love,
Sparkle-free Zone
Dear Sparkle-free Zone,
I completely understand where you’re coming from, because I literally am you. So here’s what I’ve learned between being you and also being me, while always, fundamentally, being . . . me and you.
After your trust was broken in different ways, for a while you wanted to stop engaging with the world because it felt safer.
You had this fear pricking at you and couldn’t help but wonder if maybe all boys were equally awful, equally likely to hurt you, that there must be something in their composition to make them want to do these things to girls (girls like you, in particular, whatever that means), but the thing that will take your breath away is the realisation that this is not true at all.
It’s not inevitable. It’s a choice that some of them make.
All of which is to say, you’re not wrong for trusting people.
You’re not stupid or naive. They’re the ones making a choice to abuse your trust. Do not lose your sparkle.
Do not lose your ability to trust. Do not let them take that away from you.
By all means, if someone gives you actual reason to doubt them, listen.
And I don’t mean listen to every silly thing you hear about someone (consider the source!), I mean listen to how they treat you, how they treat other girls, how they talk about girls and whether how they talk about girls matches up to their actions.
It’s easy for someone to call themselves a feminist, but are they still interested in a girl when she disagrees with them or confronts them or says no to them?
Flirting is fun and sleeping with someone new can be thrilling, and it’s fine to want the excitement of a new crush, to seek out the thrill of the chase, but if it still feels like you’re chasing them once you’ve ‘got’ them, when will that insecure feeling ever end?
Think of the feeling of being in your kitchen with your flatmates, drinking instant coffee and listening to the radio.
You are going to find someone who makes you feel like that.
The excitement and the thrill are going to come from actually spending time with them and getting to know them, rather than from the scarcity mindset that comes with a person who won’t commit to you.
And know that while you are, by your nature, a boy-crazy little flirt, you will get so much out of deepening your love and connection with people in ways that aren’t romantic.
Learning to love people on their own terms, without trying to fix them or figure out what’s going on with them, is a really powerful and beautiful way to engage with someone.
You tend to think of your sparkle as something that exists in relation to romantic partners or someone you’re flirting with, but it’s something you have in all your relationships.
Don’t save that gorgeous attention and curiosity only for your new crush.
Turn it towards your friends and family too. God knows they deserve it!
Know that you can’t know everything, as much as you want to. Some things will have to remain a mystery, and you have to be at peace with the not-knowing. While you can’t let the not-knowing consume you, you can let it inform you.
Finally: think about yourself slightly less. Think about other people slightly more. That is where the magic happens.
I love you. You are gorgeous, you are wonderful, you have so much to learn, and you are always deserving of care.
With so much affection,
Genius of Love